


Travelling Light

by homsantoft (tofsla)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:28:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla/pseuds/homsantoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everyone is older, the Storm Coast is entirely as advertised, and Dorian knows where home is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Travelling Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [electricshoebox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoebox/gifts).



> For Riss, who prompted me to write about Dorian & Bull getting caught in a particularly nasty storm on the storm coast.
> 
> Thanks to Bri for beta-reading & James for general enthusiasm, as ever.

The Storm Coast is eternally itself. Misty rain clings to the skin, soaks slowly through clothes. Underfoot, the rocks are slippery with moss.

" _Kaffas,_ " Dorian mutters, using his staff to catch himself as he loses his footing again. His weak ankle is no good for this. It had really never occurred to him exactly how much lasting damage a break could do before he left the North, but here he is, a year after a bad fall in the mountains outside Kirkwall, regretting his choices just a little. But hadn't Bull been gentle with him, a strong arm under his elbow to help him back to camp, fingers testing the joint carefully. _Hey, we match now,_ he'd said, kissed the skin of Dorian's ankle and adjusted the brace for him. A new morning routine. _That good?_ And yes, it had been good, good to have someone to take care of him, to make everything normal.

Still, it would also be good to have better balance than he currently finds himself in possession of.

"Language," Krem says, and Skinner's laughter is sharp, Bull's closer to a snort. Dorian curses at him again for good measure; Krem grins, throws a mock-salute, soporati to altus, a comfortable sort of needling.

They work their way slowly east. The house at Apostate's Landing has fallen further in on itself since they were here with the Inquisition, a wreck of rotten beams hulking at the top of the rise like the corpse of a giant. Bull looks out over the water, an island almost lost in the mist, a low dark outline. "Remember that dragon? Now _that_ was a good fight."

"That was further back down the coast," Dorian says, "and if I recall correctly, you almost died."

"Sure did," Bull says. Of course he would sound proud. He complained, Dorian remembers, that he didn't get a decent scar out of it, and Cadash had patted him solemnly on the hand as though this made sense and promised him he could get one next time. The Inquisitor's sense of humour was not legendary, but probably only because of extreme exertion on Josephine's part.

In the middle of the afternoon, the sky is already darkening, the light turning dull and flat. The rain is more definite, the wind rising. Dorian's clothes stick to his skin; his hair sticks to his forehead. 

"Well," he says, "isn't this perfectly nostalgic? We ought to have invited our dear Cadash, it would have given her a break from being so very important. I know I for one have missed being entirely sodden."

The storm breaks: wind and heavy raindrops roaring through the trees, and the distant rumble of thunder half-lost below them.

 

 

"Ah, fuck it," Bull says, two slopes later. The rain comes in almost horizontally from the Waking Sea, getting in their eyes, drumming noisily against rocks and trees and armour. It's almost impossible to see where they're going, and Dorian has not missed the fact that Bull has moved in closer to him, as though waiting to catch him if he falls. Everyone else is hunched over against the sting of the wind. "We're never going to make the rendezvous tonight like this. Make camp." The last words are a shout, for everyone to hear, but the wind takes them anyway. 

Even away from the beach, sheltered a little by an overhang, they have to wrestle the tents together to get them up, four to hold the wretched things in place and two to secure them. To keep them dry inside is a lost cause, but, Dorian supposes, at least their belongings won't be actively getting wetter. By the time he can crawl into the tent he's going to be sharing with Bull, he's shivering, fumbling after the right level of heat to dry both of them out without setting anything on fire. A delicate operation, not helped by chattering teeth.

He meets Bull's eye, silent permission granted before he writes his glyph in the air between them; a shudder of relief goes through Bull's body as warmth sweeps over him, eases the chill out of his joints. These days, he doesn't grumble about this kind of casual magic, not in Dorian's hands. But Dorian has learnt a lot about limits. Just because someone can tolerate being taken by surprise doesn't mean they should have to.

Inside the tent the rain is even louder, a curtain of noise pulled in around them, screening them from the rest of the world. The walls of the tent sway.

Bull flops back onto their mess of slightly damp bedding, chest rising and falling heavily, but the sound of his sigh or groan is lost. He reaches for Dorian, an outstretched arm to pull him down against Bull's chest. Hot breath against his ear.

"We should get you out of those wet clothes," Bull says, low and wicked. He's certainly smiling, although Dorian can't see it.

He has been told that sex ought to feel like a less pressing need with age, but at forty he has very little evidence to support the idea. His body, certainly, does not seem to have received the message.

"No," he says firmly, turns Bull's head with steady hand on his jaw to kiss him, the scratch of stubble against his chin, the scar at the corner of Bull's mouth familiar under his tongue. Pulls away just enough to speak. " _You_ should get me out of these clothes, and I will—oh—graciously allow you to do so. You got me into this storm in the first place, I must point out."

"Hmm," Bull says, sliding his arms around Dorian, nestling their bodies closer together for a moment—and oh, Dorian loves that, the curve of Bull's stomach against his comfortable in a way he could not possibly explain. The slow curl of arousal, all anticipation. To be laid bare, the full length of Bull's heavy body against his—"I can do that."

It's still not evening. The storm isn't letting up. Nowhere to be, and Bull's hands move over Dorian's body with slow purpose, over laces and buckles, bare skin revealed piece by piece. The backs of Bull's fingers drag across Dorian's chest—find every place he most loves to be touched, but linger nowhere. 

Dorian, who asked for this, wanted exactly this, knows exactly how much Bull gets off on doing it, groans—sucks in a sharp unsteady breath, curses quietly. Can hardly hear himself, but feels Bull's answering laugh, sees the soft, fond satisfaction in Dorian's pleasure that transforms his face.

So much care. There was a time when it would have overwhelmed him—did, more than once. Shaking uncontrollably under Bull's hands. He did not know, then, that his life could look like this. That it could be safe to want. But he wanted all the same, and feared himself. Certainly he would never have allowed this, not in an inquisition camp, not even under the cover of a storm. Too great a vulnerability.

But now—now—ah, he is older. Less afraid. 

At least in this one way.

"Bull," Dorian says, groans again, presses shivery kisses to Bull's shoulder, his neck. "The next time we have a roof over our heads, I want to fuck you." 

"Oh, _yeah_ ," Bull says. "Shit. Yeah. I love your cock. Maybe I'll hold you down and ride you real slow, watch your face the whole time—"

It's hot, of course. There's a jolt of arousal at the idea, and naturally Bull sees that, smirks up at him. But it's threaded through with a peculiar protectiveness, the urge to just hold Bull, tell him—tell him all the words that Dorian always finds difficult. 

Makes him want to take care of Bull too. Bull, whose body is messed up in five hundred different ways, resisting him more and more every year, but who wouldn't have hesitated to grab Dorian and help him as they struggled up that last hill.

"Here," Dorian says, takes a deep breath in at the junction of Bull's neck and shoulder, lets the smell of him spread heat through his body, tingle across his skin, "I want to give you my mouth."

It's good, it's so good, when Bull just takes control. But not always. Right now, his want is—more selfish, in a way. To give and, in giving, claim.

It took him long enough, to be able to. Longer still for Bull to fully accept it.

"Yeah," Bull says. "Yeah, that's good."

Two yards away, Dalish and Skinner and Rocky are probably playing cards, huddled up in their own tent. Being crude, presumably. Complaining casually about everything, definitely. There's a reason Dorian likes the Chargers so much.

But two yards is, for now, a world of distance.

Dorian, naked, on hands and knees, lowers his head to kiss Bull's cock through his absurd trousers; breathes in the smell of him there, too. Bull fumbles his belt undone, and Dorian shifts to help him out of his clothes, bends again to kiss Bull's knee, the inside of his thigh. His cock, again. 

Bull inhales sharply through his nose.

"Your knee?" Dorian asks, lifts a hand to it, as gentle as he can.

"Not interested in my knee right now," Bull says. "Seem to remember you saying something about my cock."

"Oh, Amatus," Dorian says, laughing. "And you call me impatient. Let me."

Bull nods, watches Dorian, his eye huge-pupiled in the dim light. Dorian, with careful fingers, traces heat into stiff muscles, around the kneecap that never quite wants to sit right. All these marks that life has left on both of them—on Bull most of all, for all that Dorian's ankle stiffens and aches—for all that he is at times intensely, vainly aware of the uneven scar on his forehead from a poisoned blade. How they struggled to stop it bleeding, Dorian shaking from more than the cold in a blighted marshy stretch of wilderness in southern Ferelden. But Bull—

It is a miracle that Bull is still standing.

Dorian closes his eyes against the thought, presses his lips softly to Bull's knee again, head bowed with all the reverence of prayer. He does not sing the Chant of Light, not like that. But he asks, in his way, to be heard.

Bull's hand comes to rest on his head, huge and warm as a benediction. The left, with two fingers lost. _I was captured, on Seheron,_ Bull said once, late at night, almost the same tone as any other story he'd ever told about some ridiculous adventure. 

This is not the moment for that thought. Dorian wrenches himself away from it, back to the moment, to Bull's solid presence; kisses his way, finally, up the inside of Bull's thigh to stretch his lips around Bull's cock with a tiny sigh of relief. Such a comforting intimacy, nothing but the taste and touch and smell of Bull. His cock jerks against Dorian's tongue. Against Dorian's arms, Bull's thighs tremble, shift restlessly, his feet slipping on the blankets.

"Oh, fuck," Bull says, the words a loud groan as Dorian takes him deeper. "Fuck, yeah, that's it—" 

He's watching avidly, propped up on one elbow to see better, his other hand back on Dorian's head—a gentle pressure, nothing Dorian can't push back against. For today, that's just right: just enough to feel, to make his back arch. His hips are rolling in tiny urgent circles against nothing, his cock heavy between his legs. But he loves this, loves the want, the giddy heat that coils through him. To delay his own pleasure for Bull's, even though no-one is making him. 

In the morning, he thinks, hazy and distant, his knees and elbows are going to regret this. But now—oh, it's worth it, more than worth it.

He sucks carefully, pulls back to use his tongue against the head, sinks back down, takes Bull deeper, a little deeper again.

Yes, he can lose himself in this, still, again and again. 

"So good," Bull says. He's making sure I can hear, Dorian realises, flushes at the thought, a brilliant fresh flare of heat. "Always so fucking good, all for me. Yeah, like that, harder, shit—Dorian—I'm close now, you want to—"

Dorian just moans around him, works a hand between Bull's legs to press insistent fingers to the sensitive skin behind his balls, matching the steady movement of his mouth—more and more and more until Bull groans, shudders. 

Comes apart, Dorian's name on his lips.

 

 

True night falls, the barest darkening of the already dim tent, and Dorian makes light for them, a little glowing ball, just enough to see by.

Outside, the rain still falls heavily, but the wind is easing, the tents no longer straining to hold against it. Bull curls around Dorian, holds him close, murmurs Qunlat against his skin.

Bull rarely uses Qunlat in these moments, prefers the common tongue for endearment, for all the words of praise he sometimes likes to speak into the peaceful quiet after good sex. Dorian isn't sure, but he thinks some words might actually be harder for Bull to say in Qunlat. Closer, larger.

"What are you saying?" Dorian asks, shifts in Bull's arms. It's so comfortable, to press his face against Bull's chest, sink into the feeling of being held.

"Just shit-talking your hair," Bull says, and Dorian smiles, feels love like a lump in the throat, a tightness in his chest. He could laugh, or perhaps cry, although he isn't a bit sad.

"Oh, I see how it is."

"Yeah," Bull says, softly, like a confession, and Dorian, no less overcome by emotion, has to swallow hard.

They doze together. There's no telling for how long. Voices in the camp. _Can't you just magic it dry, Dalish? It won't fucking burn._ Dalish, with tired backing chorus: _I'm not a mage._ Laughter.

"We should eat something," Dorian says.

"Mm," Bull says, and holds him tighter, strokes his apparently much-disparaged hair.

Neither of them moves.

Long years together. Dorian's position is uncertain—no-one in particular, not a Charger for all that he travels with them, and no longer part of the Inquisition's core workings. An occasional Inquisition agent, certainly, in his way—letters about the politics of the Magisterium, a little practical problem-solving now and then, a network of friends—hardly a calling. To Tevinter itself, mostly a scandalously exciting rumour, intriguing at a distance but threatening up close. 

Still: here is a home, and he belongs in it. Tomorrow the storm will have passed and they'll move on, but he will take this home with him. 

And perhaps he has earnt that much, after all.


End file.
